Dog and pony show

[Maddog]

Last month, something beyond imagination happened in Southern California: A San Diego sheriff's deputy appeared to overdose simply by touching fentanyl, or perhaps by just standing near it.

The thing that made it so astounding: Medical professionals agree that such a feat is essentially impossible. The thing that made it even more astounding: Several local, national, and international media uncritically regurgitated the claim. This episode is an important reminder that recycling government press releases does not qualify as reporting.

"'I'm not going to let you die': Fentanyl exposure almost kills San Diego County deputy," read a late Friday headline on a story written by The San Diego Union-Tribune, which was printed in the Los Angeles Times. (It has since been changed.) "Fentanyl exposure knocks officer off his feet in seconds," warned CNN. "Police trainee exposed to fentanyl during arrest collapses and almost dies but is saved by partner," said The Independent, a British publication.

"Bizarre. Can't absorb fentanyl through touch," said Matthew W. Johnson, psychiatry professor and drug researcher at Johns Hopkins University, in response to the video. "Deputy likely had a psychological/panic reaction. And then release a PSA video of it? The level of ignorance is amazing." It could have been, for instance, what scientists call the "nocebo effect": the opposite of a placebo, where you panic over a drug because you know or feel it could be dangerous.

I don't subscribe to the belief that journalists have bad intentions when they accept the state's press releases at face value. But it's also not really journalism. More importantly, it has real-world effects. "Concerns about supposed occupational risks of fentanyl exposure to police have been especially persuasive in invigorating hyper-punitive laws, including drug-induced homicide and capital punishment for distributing this supposed 'weapon of mass destruction,'" writes a group of researchers for the International Journal of Drug Policy. "Given the fraught history of U.S. federal government messaging and policymaking in the wake of 9/11, the invocation of this trope is especially telling."

https://reason.com/2021/08/09/san-diego ... ble-media/


I saw this story last week and wondered how the fuck does that even work.

Apparently it doesn't.

This is how bullshit goes viral. One source reports something, and dozens of others run with it, without doing any research.

I'll bet 95% of the people that read that story last week have no idea it was bullshit. .